


Like Me

by HopefulNebula



Category: Alphas
Genre: Autism, Canon Autistic Character, Canon Compliant, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Jewish Character, Gen, Missing Scene, Neurodiversity, POV Disabled Character, POV Third Person, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-04
Updated: 2011-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-22 05:02:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopefulNebula/pseuds/HopefulNebula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gary finds someone like him. Missing scene from 1.04 "Rosetta."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Me

When Doctor Rosen tells the group that the woman in the back room -- Anna, Gary reminds himself, her name is Anna, and that's a very pretty name, and she's very pretty too -- is most likely autistic, Gary smiles.

She's like me, he thinks. Like me, but different.

He knows other autistic people, talks to them at the group his mother takes him to every Sunday (except for that time when they were chasing after an Alpha who was pushing people into giving large sums of money to a scam she'd set up. And the time he had the flu. And a lot of other times, now that he thinks about it). But he's never met someone like him on his own before. Other people come into his life. He's not the one who comes into their lives. Until now.

He wonders if they could be friends someday. Maybe she knows how to type.

Doctor Rosen has him and Nina stay with Anna for a while. That's good. It's quieter that way. He can hear better without all the signals from the team and the van.

Anna runs her hand over the bristles on her hairbrush and looks up at him from the chair. Gary looks back, and for once he's comfortable looking someone in the eye. For a few seconds, anyway. After that, she gets up and turns the water in the sink on.

Gary doesn't like water all that much. He hates being wet. He hates when it's too cold or too hot. He hates how cold the air is before he gets dry. But watching her run her hands under the stream of water, he begins to understand how other people see beauty in it.

"Anna?" he says. "Doctor Rosen says you can hear me, even if you can't understand. I think you do understand me, a little bit."

Anna turns the water off and leans against her closet door. Gary touches his wristband, spinning it a full three hundred sixty degrees around his wrist.

"My mother made me some egg salad for lunch. She says I'm not supposed to share it, but if you're hungry you can have some later. We'll have to wait until 1:30, though. If I eat lunch before then, I get hungry before dinner."

Anna hums and rubs both hands over a foot massager that sits on her dresser, then goes back to her closet door.

"I use one of those when I go to occupational therapy," Gary says. "She says that exposure to lots of textures and sounds helps desensitize my nervous system when I have to do things I don't like. She doesn't know what I can do, of course. She can't help me when I get overwhelmed by all the signals. That's what I can do, you know. I can see phone signals and wireless signals and most of the electromagnetic spectrum. Except for Nokia phones. They use a different protocol. And Nina can make people do things, but it doesn't work on me and I don't think it would work on you either."

Gary stops to take a breath and then realizes something.

"You don't make noises when I talk to you. Are you listening? Do you understand me?"

Anna takes her hairbrush and slowly tweaks three bristles with her thumb. She looks up at Gary and tweaks the same three bristles once again.

"You're not just listening. You're trying to say something. Say some more, and I might be able to figure it out. Then we can talk. Or I can talk and you can make noises that mean things. Which is what talking is, so I guess you'd be talking, too."

Gary smiles, and for the first time, Anna smiles back. It isn't a grin like Gary's -- he wonders whether she has the muscle control to do it -- but her face brightens enough that he knows what she means.

He's never been very good at understanding people, but he thinks that with time and effort, he can understand her.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has a stand-alone companion: "[An Equal](http://archiveofourown.org/works/460004)".


End file.
